During the summer of 1994, a number of local Christian clergy approached the Institute seeking an educational forum in which they might wrestle with biblical passages they were finding increasingly more difficult to preach. In response to this request, the Institute consulted with several local rabbis and Christian clergy. The fruit of this collaborative work is a new program initiative.

The Preaching Colloquium is a clergy education program whose primary focus is on Christian preaching and the liturgical use of sacred scriptures. In part, the Colloquium addresses the centuries-old problem that an uncritical reading of the Gospels all too often leads to negative descriptions of the Jewish people and a diminished understanding of the continuing vitality of Judaism. During the last three decades, a growing body of scholarship has emerged that offers a new and more comprehensive awareness of the complex relationship that existed between rabbinic Judaism and nascent Christianity in the tumultuous decades of first and early second century Common Era Palestine. The Colloquium seeks to make Christian clergy more keenly aware of this scholarship and to assist them as they try to preach the core Christian narrative in ways that do not enshrine distorted perceptions of Judaism and the Jewish people.

With the support and cooperation of the Baltimore Chapter of the American Jewish Committee, the ICJS will offer the Preaching Colloquium semiannually: once, prior to the season of Lent/Easter, and once, just before the Advent/Christmas season.

On February 21, 1995, Woodbrook Baptist Church and Pastor John Roberts were host to the first meeting of the Preaching Colloquium. Designed primarily to assist Christian clergy in preparing their congregations for Lent and Easter, "A Lenten Afternoon" brought together thirty-five priests, ministers, and pastoral associates, along with several local rabbis and religious educators, for an afternoon of study, discussion, and exchange of ideas. The first session focused on the Lectionary readings for the Fifth Sunday in Lent. Small group text study was followed by input sessions led by Rabbi Daniel Lehmann, Principal of the Beth Tfiloh Upper School, and the Rev. Roger Gench, Pastor of Brown Memorial Presbyterian Church, Bolton Hill. The second session focused on Peter and Judas, two pivotal gospel characters who play central roles in the Gospel readings of Holy Week and Easter. The Institute asked three long-time associates to write meditations (a kind of "Christian Midrash") on each of these characters at specific moments in the Passion account. The Rev. Carl Edwards, Rector of Immanuel Episcopal Church, the Rev. John Roberts, Pastor of Woodbrook Baptist Church, and Mr. Peter Culman, Managing Director of Center Stage, offered dramatic readings of their original and creative works. An animated discussion followed.

With permission of the authors, we have reproduced each of their texts. Although reading them is no substitute for their power as proclaimed word, we anticipate that they will, never-theless, convey something of the experience.